re: #288 freetoken

The Gospel of Thomas and all the misc. “Christian” material found in Egypt raises the question of how different cultures framed their religions. Substantially, “Christianity” of the 1st century in Egypt could have been very different than that in Asia Minor.

Some of the oldest surviving material suggests that the beliefs and practices of the time were substantially different than what eventually became the Christianity of Europe.

The very sharp divide with the established Jewish hierarchy though was one of the consistent themes even from the beginning.

This suggests that the real formation of Christianity had much to do with intra-religious disputes between Jewish groups.

how did this lead to the writing of e.g. the sermon on the mount and, ultimately, a convergence on the rest of the body of preaching of this hypothetically fictional character?